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HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the sole unexpected element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was just how surprised observers seemed when reports of the result and its impact for the top of the table circulated. While this convincing victory at their home ground, which puts the Edinburgh side leading of the table and a significant margin clear of their rivals, was seismic in scale, nobody who has been tracking the fortunes of either squad this season will have been even remotely astonished by the final score.

Over the past 40 seasons, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have carved up the Scottish football between them, turning fitba to something of a joke in the process. Several matches into the current season it has become apparent that Heart of Midlothian – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their famous supporters – might just be ready to strike while the Glasgow duo influence is at its weakest.

CELTIC'S SLUMP

Although much of the focus in Scotland has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the circumstances at their stadium has meant that Celtic's slightly less terminal decline has been able to worsen below the radar. The reigning champions have so far dropped 10 points from their opening nine league games this term under their manager. The team's boss has acquired the distant look of a individual who constantly consulting his schedule to find out how many days are remaining until his contract expires, and awoke this morning to discover the number is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure at the club," he told the media following the loss, after they had doubted his appetite for anything resembling a championship battle. "So the motivation is there to attempt to flip the standards that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the horrific start to the season being endured by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his players could typically be expected to escape scrutiny for their own inability to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the mix. Despite being obliged to operate with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have added the investment and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. As well as investing £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has provided Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential analytics-based Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to unearth hidden talents from Walsall, the Slovak first division and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at Tynecastle on matchday wearing a club colours, the notoriously astute professional gambler could be seen celebrating each score with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his team's chances of beating the out-of-sorts champions, and placed large bets as a result.

COACH'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his side's most recent success, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for those on the outside looking in. It might change perceptions. It might validate opinions that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the lads have given us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and definitely physically we look in a good place, so long may that continue. Naturally, it's not a position that this club is used to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, analytics-backed truth is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might actually have a title race that somebody besides the traditional powers can win.